The World Ends with You
by Guntz
Summary: The moment I took my first breathe for what seemed forever, I screamed. OC-centric story!
1. the fruit

**A/N: **Not my first rodeo here, for those of you wondering about _**Life is Like a** **Boat**_ I'm actually in the middle or revising and editing it. This is what I get for writing long-ass chapters, lucky you. Anyway, this is another take on the One Piece genre that you all have no doubt heard; making an original character have relations with a canon character. Yeah, you know; Luffy/Ace having a sister or somebody having a sister. I have yet to come across a good one (if any of you know, give me some recommendations). This is my take, enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** One Piece and its characters belongs to Oda-sensei, my OC belongs to me!

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It was like something out of the first pages of the Bible, the story about Eve and the Serpent.

The Serpent invaded the Garden of Eden. The Serpent went undetected for he was a crafty creature. Making his way through the garden, the Serpent came upon a great tree; the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God had told both Adam and Eve to never eat the fruits of the Tree, or there would be dire consequences from disobeying.

And so, the Serpent called out to the naïve Eve, whispering for her to come and eat the fruits from the Tree.

"It will open your eyes and make you just like God. And you will know good and evil."

The Serpent cackled to himself as he watched Eve pluck the fruit from the Tree and sink her teeth into it, watching the red juices drip from her mouth and down her chin...

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"Drake! You're up!"

I let out a heavy sigh as I watched my friend stand in the middle of the stage, alone and nervous, as the three older girls watched her speculatively. All of them were pondering on one thing; was Miranda Drake worth it or was she just another face in the crowd?

"What would you like to hear?" Miranda nervously asked, offering a weak smile that none of the girls returned.

I couldn't help but wince at their coldness.

One girl, the tallest blond (because they are all blond) leaned closer to the table the girls were sitting behind, skimming through a paper before returning her gaze towards Miranda.

"Bruno Mars, If I was your Man."

Half an hour later, Miranda and I left the building... well, I more like dragged the foaming mass away from the building when she was too busy convulsing on the floor because she had been denied entering the A Capella groups. Miranda was a good singer, but I suppose in the eyes of the A Capella groups, they only wanted the best of the best.

"C'mon Mandy, don't let those idiots get you down. You're better than that." I said to her, dragging her over to a nearby fence. "Those people don't know talent when they see it. That's why they lose all the time from competitions."

"But..." Miranda whined, but was quickly cut off.

"No buts. You're going to to do great somewhere better than this dump!" I exclaimed.

Finally, the red-head gave in and smiled. She leaned in and hugged me tightly, something of which I returned the gesture.

Miranda and I had went to middle school together, I was the new student and she was assigned as my guide. Miranda had other friends, too, while had none of my own but her; she was my one and only best friend. I wasn't good at making other friends, I've always been a bit introverted and the only reason I talked to Miranda at first was to find the next class. Even now, I couldn't find the courage in me to ask a boy out because I'd choke up the minute I made eye-contact with a person!

It was only worse when others branded me a social outcast. I wasn't a goth or an emo, I just liked to dress in dark clothes sometimes. The only time I dressed in bright colors was when the sun was too hot for me to dress darkly in. Anyway, back to the present at hand.

"Anyway, lets go somewhere to find some food!" Miranda announced, standing up from the bench and taking my wrist in her hand so that I was forced to stand with her.

"You're always hungry..."

"Food comforts me!"

"You're going to get fat, Mandy!"

**~+~+~+~oOo~+~+~+~**

We left the campus behind us, Mandy was driving the whole way to a small, cute cafe shop she found yesterday on one of her morning jogs. I stepped out of the car and followed her into the small building, and I was intrigued with the building the moment I looked at it. It looked like someplace I would hang out at, it was the kind of a place only hipsters would hang out at.

I wasn't a hipster, but I would've liked to think I was.

"C'mon, I'm buying!" Miranda called from the doorway.

I entered the shop and was hit with a cold blast that was built within the building and it was comforting. There was a small line of people ordering their caffeine and bread rolls (thankfully, this wasn't another one of those expensive Starbucks), and it wasn't long when Miranda and I reached the counter where a small, mousy-looking girl was waiting for us with a smile.

"Hi, what would you like to order?"

"Two caramel mocha frappuccino and coffee cake, please."

After the order was made, Miranda told me to save us a seat and my feet soon led me to an opening at the near back of the small shop. There wasn't any people outside so it was good that there was empty tables and chairs. I flopped down on the chair near a fence that surrounded the tables, looking back inside the shop to see Miranda talking—sorry, _flirting_!—with someone behind the counter where the mousy girl had once been.

Typical, Mandy. She was the bold one when it came to matters with the heart, having been in a good and healthy relationship before having to break it off when one or the other had to move on or things just weren't working out for them. I prayed that never a day would come when someone would break my friend's heart with cruel intentions, like what happened to one of Miranda's old friends back in high school.

Shelly had been in love with an older guy and she trusted him, trusted him enough that she had no idea she was being used. The whole ordeal was horrible, especially when other people would whisper behind her back and call her awful names. It was worse when Shelly's ex-boyfriend started a rumor of just how easy she was and it made majority of the guys at school want a piece of the action.

It resulted in the girl moving far away from the school and state. Miranda and the other girls never heard from poor Shelly again.

"It's a nice day, isn't it?"

I paused for a moment before realizing that someone must be talking to me. My eyes scanned around the chairs but I see no one, and so I turned my head to face the streets and that's when I see the source of the voice.

A tall man with broad shoulders and wearing a dark fedora over his light blond, shaggy hair was leaning against the fence near my table. His back was to me, and I took in his dark blazer and slacks, wondering briefly if he had been really talking to me or he was talking to someone in front of him that I didn't see. The man answered my question.

"The coffee and food is great here. This place isn't as popular because of the whole Starbucks propaganda..."

"That's true," I murmured and looked down at the table.

"You must be happy with the way you are living, am I right?" he suddenly asked.

He still wasn't facing me, his attention elsewhere but he was waiting for an answer. What an odd question to ask a stranger, was it not? I looked back to Miranda, watching as she was talking to the man and the mousy girl. I bit the bottom of my lip, feeling that familiar twinge in my chest every time when I was watching from the distance...

"Would you like a snack?"

I looked back to the man and I blinked when I see a round fruit with a top looking like it was trying to blossom. I followed the limb up to see the fedora-wearing stranger and I winced when my eyes caught the sun. His face remained shadowed and I quickly wiped away the tears from my sensitive eyes. Again, I'm facing the fruit that is still offered to me. With reluctance, I take the offered fruit and examine it, becoming fascinated with it because I didn't see the usual bruises on it. It was unbelievably a perfect fruit.

"Thank you, Mr...?" I trailed off, looking back to him but careful with the sunlight.

"Don't worry, just enjoy the fruit."

Even as he was obscured by the sun, I could see a wide smile directed towards me. He turned away without a word and left me alone. I stared after him, assessing and wondering on what had just happened the last minute since he first spoke to me.

"Oooh~ Who was that you were talking to?" Miranda's voice startled me.

"Mandy! Don't do that!" I snapped at her, clutching the fruit when I nearly dropped it.

"Hey? Where did you get that? I want one!" she whined and reached over the table for the fruit, but I immediately kept it out of her reach.

"No way!"

"Ah, whatever! I brought our order!"

I thankfully took my mocha frappuccino and bit off a piece of my coffee cake. Miranda went on a one-sided conversation about the two people she had been talking to, Jesse and Terry. Jesse was working to pay off a debt because of some trouble he had caused and Terry hired him because she needed an extra hand around in the shop...

I zoned out, nodding once in awhile in the pretense that I was listening every word Miranda was saying. I looked down at the fruit sitting innocently on my lap, my mind wandering back to the man and his odd question.

**~+~+~+~oOo~+~+~+~**

By the time we returned to the campus it was almost dark. Students were returning to their dorms or apartments and Miranda wanted to go out to a local bar and get drunk. I, on the other hand, wanted to go back to the dorm and sleep.

"I have a midterm test coming up."

"Whaaat~?" my friend whined. "Already?!"

"You should sleep, too, you'll regret it by morning."

"Ahhh... I promised Jesse I'd meet him at the bar..."

I let out a sigh and looked at the direction of the campus, shoving my hands into my pockets. I hear her give a sign of her own and arms wrap around my shoulders.

"Please...? I just got turned down because of those stupid A Ca-bitches. I just want one day for me, one day for things to go right."

"Of course. As always..." I couldn't stop the bitterness in my tone. In my pockets, my hand brushed against something.

"What's that suppose to mean?" I feel her arms loosen and her voice sharpen.

"What do you think?" I escape from her embrace and start towards the campus, but I was forced to stop when Miranda's hand halts my steps.

"No, seriously, what was that suppose to mean?!" she demanded, her green eyes flashing with anger.

Normally, I would have tried to placate her and calm things down, but I had enough of her "me, me, me" world. Miranda was a good singer, a great friend, and an outgoing person, but sometimes she seemed to believe that the world revolved around her. And sometimes, her world would crush me.

"I'm tired, Mandy! You would skip classes and when you're in danger of being dropped out, you'd come to me and I have to be the one that cleans up your messes!"

All the while I was lecturing her, my fingernails were digging into the fruit, wanting to keep my hands busy with something while I was speaking up. I was forced to remove the fruit from my pocket when it was starting to drip. I dug my nails deeper, opening the fruit wider until it revealed the contents of its insides to me.

"Why didn't you just say no, then?!" she demanded, becoming more angry.

"Because you are my friend. But sometimes, you just treat me like some pet or something."

"I do not!"

"Yeah you do! You go around picking clothes for me from my closet, tell me to pick up things that you need from somewhere, and you give me food that I don't actually like!"

This was getting worse by the passing seconds, but I couldn't stop myself. I glanced down at the fruit in my hands, recalling the words that the fedora-wearing stranger had asked me earlier on that afternoon.

"No," I said to myself but loud enough for Miranda to hear. "I'm definitely not happy!"

I bit the fruit.

"If you're not happy then you can get the hell out of my life!"

Several things happened at once; Miranda strode up and pushed me backwards very roughly, there was a car full of frat boys coming down the street in an illegally fast rate, and all I could think was how awful the fruit tasted.

Miranda Drake let a scream erupt from her mouth when she saw her best friend fly right into the path of Greg Taylor's BMW. Stanley Collin, who had been sitting at the passenger seat, had shouted at Greg to stop when he noticed a person stumble on the road, but by the time Greg noticed, it was too late.

As if the world had gone slow motion, the three boys watched the glass shatter and a body halt halfway into the car, bleeding profusely. The third passenger, Hector Martinez, who has previously worked in clinics as a nurse, shakily reached a hand to touch the person's neck and searched for a pulse.

There was none.

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The moment I took my first breathe for what seemed forever, I screamed.


	2. interlude

**A/N: **Hi there! This is a short chapter but it's an important one. The next chapter I promise will start the story we're all waiting to read from my oc's POV. But until that next update of the chapter comes, you're stuck with this one. ENJOY!

**Disclaimer:** One Piece and its characters belongs to Oda-sensei, my OC belongs to me!

* * *

_"__... sh-she just came out of nowhere. We weren't drunk, or anything!"_

_"__It wasn't your fault, It was an accident."_

_"__It's alright, honey, we'll get through this..."_

_"__Hey, you're that girl I saw in the news! The one that____—____"_

_"__... Well? Before we begin, would you like to say something?"_

_"__You killed her! YOU KILLED HER!"_

_"__Don't! Just don't."_

_"__I-I'm so sorry!"_

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The red-head had been hesitant to go at first, but she had to do this. She just had to, no matter what came her way through the worst of it, she just needed to do this. It might help her, a doctor had told her when she was forced to come to the clinic by her parents.

The dark circles around her eyes said that Miranda couldn't find any rest. But who could? After what happened, how could she find sleep when all she could see behind closed eyes was her friend being horrifically slammed through the windshield? She could still remember the feeling of blood on her face from the impact, she still remembered the smell when she watched people run blindly for help.

Miranda rang the door bell, listening it chime and waiting for the occupants inside to answer the door. She was both relieved and terrified when the person who answered the door was the youngest child of the family, Marcus. Marcus was thirteen years old, his voice was getting essentially deeper and he was growing just as handsome as his older brother—

"What do you want?" came a frosty demand.

She swallowed heavily, blinking away the wetness from her eyes as she looked straight on Marcus' glaring eyes. He looked like he was wanted to beat her to an inch of her life, and if that had been the case, she would have let him. She deserved it.

"I, I wanted to drop these off." she gestured to the small box in her arms. "I wanted to give them back."

He stared at her with wariness, as if he was expecting this to be a trick. Like he was expecting her to reveal the demon with her. The very monster that killed his older sister...

"Can I take this to her room? Please?" she pleaded to Marcus, no longer having the will in her to hold back the tears and hurt she had been bottling the last few months.

Marcus stared at the box in her arms. It would have been just easy for him to simply take the box and slam the door shut in her face, no longer welcome her presence in the very house she would always visit when she walked back from school with her friend. Amazingly, Marcus opened the door wide enough and gestured her inside without a word.

She let out a quiet sigh of relief.

She stepped inside and watched the door close behind her and she waited until Marcus led the way through the house. Miranda looked around the house, knowing that this would be the last time she would ever step inside when this was done and over with. Looking inside the living room, she recalled a time when she would watch Zack play the old Resident Evil games that creeped her out, furiously hugging her friend for comfort.

"Why did you let her in?!"

Maggie, the now only daughter of the family, was screeching at her younger brother. Maggie was very temperamental and was easy to anger out of the five children, and she was ready to murder her on the spot for just looking at Miranda. If it hadn't been for the security escort Maggie would have attacked Miranda, but now she was alone and at her mercy.

And yet, she was welcoming any coming beating with her name on it.

"She wanted to drop off some stuff."

Brushing by Marcus, Maggie strode up to Miranda and grabbed her by the lapels of her coat. "Get out! You're not welcome here you fucking murderer!"

"MAGGIE!"

All three jumped at the booming shout that came like thunder and at the entrance of the living room was the oldest of the five, Joseph. Joe stood tall but seemed to be restraining himself from going into another shouting spat with his little sister. With one last seething look, Maggie released Miranda and briskly left the hallway and towards the kitchen. There was a long pregnant pause before Miranda finally mustered enough courage to look at Joe in the eye.

"Joe, I'm—"

"Just drop whatever you have in her room and get out."

And just like that, the elder child turned away from the quiet red-head and back into the living room. It took Marcus to get Miranda to move her feet and follow him up the stairs where the room was located.

It looked the same, if not a little empty, but things haven't changed in the room. The walls were still a lilac hue, the bed still had the patched quilt cover with cows and sunflowers on it. The red-head walked towards the white empty desk and placed the box down, opening the cover so she could get to work on putting things back to place as she had remembered.

Marcus silently watched her the whole time, waiting for her to finish and finally walk her out the door so he would never have to see her again. It was strange. Not so long ago, the brat used to whine to his older sister on why she wasn't as cool as her best friend. Miranda didn't feel cool.

She walked over to the book shelf to place the alarm clock back to place when she noticed something colorful at the corner of her eye. She reached for it and slid out the book to get a better look at the cover. Somehow she vaguely remember this book, but from where...?

"She really liked those books. She was always asking mom or dad to buy her one when we would go to the library." Marcus told her, leaning against the door frame. "But, she stopped reading collecting them."

"Why?"

"'Cause apparently that was kiddy stuff and she should act like an adult."

And it clicked. Another wave of guilt hit her like a bunch of brick, reminding her of the last words she spoke her friend before she was killed that night. She clutched the book in her hands and held it closely to her chest, letting another flow of tears fall down her red cheeks.

_"Hey, what are you reading?" Miranda asked when she came upon a familiar, lonely form sitting away from the people of the cafeteria._

_"__Well, it's like a comic book."_

_"__Uhhh... aren't you a little old for comic books?"_

"Can I have this?" she asked, holding the book up for Marcus to see.

She shouldn't deserve to be inside this house to begin with, let alone be standing in their dead sister's room, but...

"Whatever." Marcus muttered as he stood up straight from leaning on the door frame.

As she walked away from the house, she heard the door shut behind her one last time before heading towards the car waiting on the side walk. Miranda's father didn't say anything the whole time he drove them both to the house, having already said his two cents yesterday when she announced her plan to visit the mourning family. She climbed inside the passenger seat and buckled up, closing the door and looking down at her lap.

Her father started the car without hesitation, like he was ready to rabbit away from this place. She understood the feeling but she couldn't allow herself to do it.

"What's that?" he asked after awhile when they stopped at a red light.

"It's a comic book. She, uh, she one time told me I would like it if I read it." she replied.

"Well, go ahead."

From her father's prompting, Miranda opened the book but realized something odd; the page said that she was reading the wrong direction. With some awkwardness, the red-head flipped the pages the other way and came across an index. She skipped past some pages until she finally found what she had been looking for.

She read the first printed words out loud,

"Once upon a time, there was a great pirate. His name was was ___'Gold Roger'_..."


	3. (re)birth

**A/N: **Another short chapter! Yes, yes, I know. But there is some progress, next time I'll make it a longer chapter, but for now, this'll have to do. I hope you'll like it though, because this is a surprise waiting to be sprung up on you faithful readers. Anyway, remember to read and review this!

**Disclaimer:** One Piece and its characters belongs to Oda-sensei, my OC belongs to me!

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Humans, despite the thousands of years of developing to become a more sophisticated species, still retained its primitive nature.

Adapting their surroundings.

The same included me.

It took me awhile to realize I was alive, that the last memory of a car hitting me and propelling my body to crash through the windshield was something I saw only a few moments ago before everything blacked out.

But the moment my awareness had come back, I screamed.

It was a terrifying thing for me to remember, to think that I still feel the pain and the shattered body I was inhabiting. All I did was just cry and scream for so long, not taking account to anything around me until some sense started to tickle into me.

I was not in pain, I was breathing (hiccuping, mostly), and I was alive.

Eventually my wits returned, but I was still shaken. Was I in a hospital? Did Miranda or someone call the ambulance and taken me to the hospital? Or was the whole thing a dream?

That's when I noticed something I had not felt before; my body being carried. The person, whoever they were, must be a ginormous person if they could just as easily fit my body snugly in their arms. I ceased my whimpering and tried to speak, but once again I noticed something off. My vocal cords were not working properly.

Whatever I tried to say it only came out like a gurgle.

I then picked up several voices and they all seemed to be speaking at once. I couldn't understand their gibberish, my mind was like a fog that I couldn't comprehend the words or other people. I would let out a gurgle and a whine to notify them that there was something seriously wrong with me, but the person who carried me and the people were talking continued on with their business, not at all concerned for my welfare.

What in the world was happening? Why was I so weak and heavy? Had I been drugged with something? Was the fruit drugged?!

Various ideas flowed within my mind and I was broken out of my thoughts with the person cradling me began to release me. I let out a startled sound when I realized I was being handed off to someone else, their hand resting behind my heavy head while their arm was used to rest my tiny frame in.

A horrible sinking feeling washed over me as I felt lip brush over my suddenly bald head. A voice humming what I could only guess was a lullaby to try and ease me to sleep...

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It took me a long while to accept what had happened to me. Some years later, I would sometimes think I would wake up and realize the whole thing had been a strange dream I conjured up from one of my favorite hobbies, but the dream was now my reality.

I didn't realize it at first, too busy coming to grips that I had somehow reverted to an infant child that was sired by completely different parents. It was a hard time for me to have help, however reluctant I was with the whole thing, when I had to be fed, bathed, and changed (something of which I wished desperately to forget). I was helpless, I couldn't move around as much as my adult had been able to, so all I could do during the time was lie down and wiggle around.

Soon as I was at least a few weeks old, my eyesight gradually returned to its semi-normal state. Some things were blurry, but that thankfully was the only problem. I saw my "mother" clearly for the first time in so long and she was a gorgeous woman to behold. She had dark brown hair that flowed lusciously down her left shoulder, the bangs framing her beautiful heart-shaped face. Her dark eyes looked down at me endearingly, her plum-colored lips smiling as she held me in her arms, humming one of her familiar lullaby's.

I never really saw much of my "father" around. I would sometimes see him there, standing at the very edge of my vision and I could feel his eyes burning on me, but he had often left me and my mother alone to ourselves. I had pondered that maybe that man who was my father was the type that didn't take keen interest with his own child, like he didn't want to be having baggage to pull him down.

I would soon come to learn that this was not the case...

It was almost a year later, when my body was slowly gaining strength for me to sit up and on the verge of walking, that a stranger entered my new home unannounced. I had been frightened at first, my mouth opening to let out a cry of warning to my mother, but I chocked on the cry.

Looming over me like a colossal titan, a man with a familiar wide-brimmed black hat decorated with a large plume sat on top of his dark head. And his eyes, those eyes I've only seen in my books back to the Other home. There was no doubt who this man was standing before me—

Dracule ___'Hawk-Eyes'_ Mihawk

"Oh," I barely heard my mother say from behind me, having joined me and our guest in the main room. "Look chéri, papa is home!"

One Piece was a fiction from my reality—and now I, too, was part of the fiction.


	4. birthday

**A/N: **You all sounded very somewhat surprised from the last chapter, well, I think this one is going to put more shock into you as well. Just a fair warning to you guys. Enjoy, SUCKERS!

**Disclaimer:** One Piece and its characters belongs to Oda-sensei, my OC belongs to me!

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It was an honest mistake on my part. I had been too busy with my panic attack to notice something off about the man sitting in the middle of the kitchen while waiting for his cup of tea. I was still blown away that I was an infant born into a world I've only ever known printed on white paper and shown behind a television screen.

___'How was this possible?' _my mind frantically demanded. ___'This isn't possible!'_

I stood at the door frame of the kitchen, not-quite-hidden but not trying too hard either. Slowly, my fragile mind began to calm itself and that's when I took in something I hadn't realized before; did Mihawk have gray strands in his hair?

I know its been over a year since I last read One Piece, but I was pretty sure that Mihawk didn't have a Napoleon III Imperial beard (giving the man a semi-devilish appearance sans the pitchfork and horns). The more I looked at him, the more I took in things that weren't apart of Mihawk's appearance from the manga and anime. Despite the uncanny resemblance, this man was not Dracule Mihawk.

So it begged a new question,_ 'Who was this man?'_

"Ginette!" I heard Bridgette, my birth mother, call me with my new name. "Won't you come say hello to papa?"

I ducked behind the wall of the door frame, flinching when the older look-alike had narrowed those hawk-like eyes on me. I heard a giggle followed my a low grunt, my curiosity piqued and, despite my rattled nerves, I looked around the corner once more to spy on my parents. Bridgette giggled again when my big head peeked from behind the door frame, she gave a playful wink in my direction before settling a tea cup before the dark individual.

It was so odd, seeing two opposites that deeply contrasted one another get along so well. The whole thing was baffling and I nearly gawked when my mother stole the hat off the man's head and tossed it somewhere in the corner of the kitchen. I almost expected the man to suddenly be angry and pull out a sword but my father barely bat an eyelash at the stunt.

"Mon amour, you shouldn't look at her like that. It's no wonder she won't come to you, you scare her." my mother chastised my father jokingly.

The man remained silent, not giving inclination that he heard my mother's words. In fact, he hadn't spoken a word since he entered the house unannounced (scaring the crap out of me in the process). He sipped his tea quietly while my mother moved around in the kitchen to keep herself busy, and I was still hiding and spying on the Mihawk look-alike.

"She's doesn't fuss around." I almost jumped when I heart a foreign voice fill the silent void.

His voice was very baritone, it was deep and heavy like a great weight was resting on his vocals, and it made him sound alluring. If there someone who I could compare this man's voice then I would say the closest to it would the guy who voiced Master Chief. Anyway, his voice startled me and I flinched again when I see his eyes narrowed on me once again.

"Oh no, she's surprisingly very quiet." my mother replied, pausing from her work to observe me as well. "She barely cries. I asked one of the women if it was normal but they too found it odd."

"Hn." the man leaned back on his chair yet remained focused on me. "That is strange. My son was noisy around that age..."

His last words made me suddenly fall back on my rear end, another wave of surprise washing over me when the puzzling mystery began to piece itself together and form a single picture.

The dark man sitting in the kitchen was not only my father but also the sire of the infamous swordsman of the world, Dracule Mihawk.

My brother.

**~+~+~+~oOo~+~+~+~**

Dracule Vladus was my father's name. It was... very fitting.

It had been awkward at first to be around the man that was the father of Mihawk, thousands upon thousands of questions bouncing against the walls of my cranium but I refrained myself for many reasons. The main reason being that I was just a toddler and I probably shouldn't know things that any normal toddler wouldn't know until they were older.

I was living a new life with a clean slate, so I might as well do what seemed right.

It was very tempting I'll admit, to be standing before someone who Oda hadn't created and was related to the infamous pirate warlord of the World Government.

Over the time he stayed in the house I tried to do baby things so not as to arouse suspicion from Vladus, or Bridgette in particular. I didn't want to make them any more concern about my strange, quiet behavior than they already were.

Sometimes Vladus would take off and wouldn't come back for a long while and only appear when we were least expecting it. The dark man seemed to have this aura of coldness in him, however, Bridgette would receive letters from him and would set me on her lap and read them to me, saying how much my papa missed me and how he was looking forward to coming home. I remained skeptical, though.

The gap between me and Vladus stuck through us for a long time... until my second birthday came.

At the time, my father had gone off at sea, his last letter was from somewhere in the North Blue when he had been taking care of business (whatever that meant). This was the longest time he had been gone, so I truly believed that he wouldn't come to my second birthday.

My mother and I were walking through the small plaza that had been constructed on the small island we lived on. There weren't any Marines and pirates rarely ever come across the island, so we were practically left mostly alone. We didn't need to go out of the island to gather supplies because we had farmers and craftsman, the point being that we had everything we need on the island to make it bearable.

Anyway, me and my mother were window shopping, minding our own business, when I suddenly felt something touch the crown of my head. The feeling made me jump and instinctively reach for my mother's skirts. That startled the woman from eying those silly little frilly dresses she was no doubt wanting to dress me up in, whirling around to face what the source of the scare was only to give out a shocked laugh.

"Mon amour!" my mother exclaimed when she saw her lover standing behind us.

My racing heart calmed when I realized there was no threat and it was just the dark man sneaking up on me from behind to tap me on the head. I had a sinking feeling that he got off on the idea of scaring the panties out of me, just for his own sick, twisted amusement. The gleam in his yellow eyes told me much.

"What is this?" I heard my mother ask as I felt her hand touch the same place on my head where my father brushed his hand against.

I looked up and was met face to face with a red ribbon.

"That is it? That's all you got our chéri for her birthday?!" Bridgette demanded when she waved the ribbon in Vladus' face.

"You seem to think that this was your gift rather than the little one..." Vladus said with a cool tone, shoving his callous hands into his dark trousers.

"You are a lousy father to Ginette, you feather-brained fool!" my mother shot back, becoming more irked with my father's aloof nature and bluntness.

"Little girls like to wear ribbons in their hairs, do they not?" Vladus deadpanned with a blank loot on his pale face.

Before my mother could have a chance to say something nasty, no matter the children present on the streets (including her own daughter), the woman felt a tug on the ribbon she was holding. Both parents looked down to see me pulling at the end of the ribbons.

"Mon chéri," my mother knelt down until she was at eye level with me. "Do you like these ribbons papa brought you?"

I never really liked ribbons, they were just frilly, silly things, and even as a child from my Other parents, I rarely ever wore them. But when I saw those ribbons and heard my father say that he got them for me, I had another moment of revelation happen to me; Dracule Vladus was a human being, and he was a father.

And my father wanted to give me something for my second birthday.

The guilt that came down on me because of my coldness and my nervousness around him made me feel stupid and angry at myself. I had been hiding away from him while he had been trying to reach out to me, to be a father to his child.

I pulled on the ribbons again, conveying to my mother that I wanted those ribbons and I would like to wear them in my hair. She caught the message and immediately went to work on securing the red ribbon. In no time, I was wearing a braid with the ribbon tied at the end in a cute bow.

I looked up to my father, and for the first time without fear hanging over me, I took a step forward and reached for his arm sleeve.

"Papa," I called out to him.

And at that moment, a heavy weight seemed to have finally left Vladus' shoulders and there was a softness in his eyes when he looked down at me, his daughter; little Dracule Ginette.


End file.
